


the sweetest con

by effing-numpties (avenging_cap)



Series: evermore songfics [3]
Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Based on a Taylor Swift Song, M/M, Making Out, Normal AU, Not much tho, Pining, Some angst, Song: cowboy like me (Taylor Swift), Songfic, Summer Nights, University AU, chatting in dark corners of parties, getting ice cream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-13 10:08:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29524812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avenging_cap/pseuds/effing-numpties
Summary: “The skeletons in both our closetsPlotted hard to fuck this up”-cowboy like me, taylor swiftBaz and Simon meet at a party one summer night and automatically fall for each other.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Series: evermore songfics [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2103921
Comments: 12
Kudos: 55





	the sweetest con

**Author's Note:**

> Full disclosure, this is my absolute favorite song off evermore. It's an interesting take on the song, but I hope I've captured the vibe!
> 
> This playlist wasn't created for this fic, but it inspired it! Listen to it to get a bit of the vibe: [late night](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2YVe3tjKL3KJuMyT4xXRCO?si=BXkT9t02TEWDVWZXwBupLQ)
> 
> Here's track 11, [cowboy like me](https://open.spotify.com/track/52OkpDsU6MmPx1AwGOb6Ap?si=2149e7a00a084199)

I knew I was doomed from the moment he asked me to dance. Sure, I thought he was attractive the moment I saw him, but I think that was what sealed the deal.

I nearly raised my eyebrow and responded _dancing is a dangerous game_ , but this wasn’t some high society party where such a comment would have been welcome. It was a shitty house party for dumbass twenty somethings.

Which is, obviously, how I had ended up outside, sitting on the back steps of the house, the faint sounds of the party trailing after me. He had followed soon after, sitting down next to me, head tilted up to the stars.

His hair was cropped close at his neck but exploded into a mass of curls from the top. I wanted to reach out and touch them, but I thought it might have been weird.

He looked over to me then, almost like he knew what I was thinking. “Not much of a party person?”

I shook my head.

He broke out into a grin then. “Me neither. You want to dance?”

I should have been thrown off by the question in a _‘we just met and we’re not even inside at the party’_ kind of way, but really I was just thrown off by how gorgeous he was. My mouth went dry. I think that’s why I actually didn’t reply with some smooth, flirty comment. My tongue physically couldn’t move.

I thought it over. They were playing something sad and slow in the house, and the sound filtered out through the opened windows into the warm night.

“It’s less scary out here,” he said.

That, apparently, was enough for me.

So now I’m in his arms, swaying slowly side to side. He’s wearing a beat up t-shirt and jeans, but it somehow suits him perfectly.

I don’t know who took control of the playlist, but this song is _really_ sad. To be fair, it’s not bad for dancing. It’s got a pull that just begs you to sway along with it, that makes you feel like you’re walking on the stars.

At the moment, we’re just connected by our hands. After a few moments, though, he pulls me in quickly, abandoning my hands to throw his arms around my neck.

 _What if I told you I feel like I know you even though we’ve never met?_ The sad singer asks.

It feels a bit like that now. Moving with him is easy, even easier in the dark. I can feel the heat radiating off him, though it isn’t nearly that hot out here.

“I’m not a party person either,” he whispers.

I’m taken aback by the intimacy of the moment.

“You’re a bandit like me,” I whisper back, embarrassed as soon as I say it.

He pulls back a little so he can see my face. “Whatever do you mean, Mr…”

“Pitch,” I say. “Baz.”

“Baz,” he says, as if to test it out. “How are we _bandits_?”

It feels stupid to even explain it. “Stealing time away from _that_ ,” I jut my chin toward the house. “Stealing moments.”

He smirks, curious. The song switches to some upbeat club music, but we don’t break apart.

“Did I read you wrong, then?” I ask, regaining some of my nerve.

“Not entirely.” He blushes a little and takes a step back. It seems like he’d just realized how bold he’d been all this time. “I’m Simon, by the way.”

It’s my turn to blush. Something about whispering our names in the dark makes them feel like secrets.

Now that we’ve stopped moving, it’s clear just how warm it is tonight. It was even worse inside, where the throng of dancing bodies heats things up. It has to be near eleven o’clock now, but the party's just beginning.

“Do you want to get out of here?” I ask before I could stop myself.

“I know a great ice cream place down the road.”

“I can drive.” I raise my eyebrow.

He doesn’t say anything as we get into the car. There’s a tension in the air that was missing back on the steps. Things are different without the protection of the darkness and the sounds of the party raging on. We don’t talk much, save for when Simon gives me directions. _Left. Right. Next right._ Nothing more.

His ice cream shop is quite literally on the side of the road. It’s as though we’ve left the town altogether and ended up on some strange, way-back roads. The store itself is circular, with curved windows along the front. The white walls stand out in the darkness, as does the bright neon sign, which reads _EBB’S ICE CREAM_ , topped with a picture of a banana split.

Despite it being in the middle of nowhere, the parking lot is full. Teenagers are sprawled out in the grassy area surrounding the place, enjoying their dessert or just laying in the grass.

“I think you’ll like it,” Simon says finally. We were parked for almost a full minute before either of us dared move. Turns out we aren’t the brave people we pretended to be back at the party.

We climb out of the car and get in the long queue. When the woman behind the counter notices us, she waves us to the front.

“Simon! I’ve missed you!” She shouts, shooing the other customers over to the next window. “You haven’t come around in a while.”

“I know, Ebb,” Simon sighs.

“Ebb as in _Ebb’s Ice Cream?_ ” I ask.

The woman’s face brightens, if only for a moment.

“That’s me. Oh! I nearly forgot,” she says, turning away from the window and returning with two sample sized spoons. “I finally got around to trying out some goat milk flavors.”

I turn to Simon, eyes wide. _She can’t be serious._

Simon winks and takes a spoon. “I told you those goats would be helpful! I’ll come visit sometime.”

I take one too, though I’m not sure what goat milk is supposed to taste like. I close my eyes and try it. Apparently, goat milk doesn’t taste like much of anything, at least in ice cream. It tastes so fresh, like the strawberries in it were just picked today.

“Delicious, Ebb,” I say.

She smiles softly.

Simon turns to me, a mischievous glint in his eye. “On a scale of one to ten, how sweet do you like your ice cream?”

I think about lying, but it feels wrong. “Nine.”

He grins. “One small vanilla bean and one small brownie dough.”

Ebb smiles and busies herself with our order.

“She’s really nice,” I say, feeling the need to fill the silence.

“She cares about me a lot,” Simon says softly.

I don’t have time to ask why, as Ebb returns with two small bowls of ice cream. “On the house!” She pushes the bowls across the counter into our hands.

We thank her and return to the car, where Simon insists we sit on the bonnet. My heart clenches— _my car_ —but I relent when I see how happy he looks, his hair glinting in the neon light. I’m not thrilled about the sweat marks my palms are leaving on the bonnet, but it’s nothing a good wax won’t fix.

“So what brought you to the party?” he asks, taking a scoop of his ice cream.

I take a bite of mine. It’s deliciously creamy, and the brownie bits are somehow both fudgy and chewy.

“My cousin. He knows the host from Watford,” I say, ignoring the fact that I technically also went to Watford, I just never made any friends.

Simon nods. “You know the host, Agatha? We used to date,” he blurts out. “My friend Penny dragged me there because she said we need to have a normal summer for once.”

I knew all about that. Every summer I retreated to my family’s home in Hampshire, content to hide among the bookshelves in the study until it was time to return to Watford. Now that all felt a bit silly, given that I’m in uni. This summer, I told myself I should stay with Fiona and attempt to have some fun.

“I can understand that,” I say slowly.

Despite the darkness of the parking lot, it still feels too public. There is one bonus of sitting this close in a dimly lit parking lot: a clear view of Simon. From here, I can see the many moles that dot his face and neck—and surely every _other_ place as well—and the tight swirls of his bronze hair. His face has a softness to it, and I just want to reach out and—

“Baz?”

“Yes?”

“Are you seeing anyone? Like from the party?” He blushes fiercely. “I was just thinking, since Agatha and I…” he trails off.

My stomach drops. “No!” I say. “I mean, no. Not at the moment.”

Simon’s face relaxes a little, and he returns his attention to his ice cream. My heart is still fluttering dangerously.

“So you’re home from university for the summer?” I ask, trying to steer the conversation back into comfortable territory.

“Yeah. I go to Mummer’s,” he says.

 _Me too._ “I like what I’m studying, but sometimes I feel like I’m stuck on this path, just trodding along to some future I don’t want.” I sigh. “Do I sound ridiculous?”

He smiles a bit, almost sadly. “Not at all.”

I set my ice cream cup down, not caring if it melts in the heat, and turn to face him. “You know, I never thought I’d meet anyone like you at that party.” _It could be…_

Love? Not in the span of just an hour. What could it have been?

The way forward. Or, perhaps, a new path (something I desperately need). That’s it: we could be the way forward, and I know I’ll pay for it.

“I didn’t think I’d _ever_ meet anyone like you, Baz.” The lights go out the moment he says this, and he startles, ending up even closer to me. “Ebb closes around this time, I think.”

I can feel his breath on my cheek. The air is warm and stale around us, but I feel comforted all the same.

 _We could just kiss,_ I think, and at the same moment, Simon whispers, “Can I kiss you?”

“Yes,” I say, breathless.

He smiles, and I find myself thinking that I want to see that smile every day, over and over again. His lips are soft on mine, and his hands are in my hair. The way biting my lip ever so slightly is making me melt.

“The ice cream!” I say, pulling back quickly. “It’s going to melt.”

Simon’s eyes widen. “Gimme, like, one second!”

He scarfs down his ice cream, and I hop off the bonnet to throw away our cups. When I return, Simon is leaning against the side of the car.

I lean in to kiss him again, but he flips us around, pinning me to the car. He grins, crashing into me. If our first kiss was shy, this one is desperate. His hands aren’t running through my hair; instead, they’re pulling at it. He bites my lip and a gasp escapes me.

“We should go.”

The ride back to my flat is excruciating. Simon has no idea where he’s going, so it takes us a few tries to get back to the main road. My heart is beating so fast that I can hear it, and I don’t know that I’ve ever driven this fast before.

As my key turns in the lock, it occurs to me that Fiona could be home.

“Fiona?” I call out. “Fi?”

The house is dead quiet, save for the sounds of Simon kicking off his sneakers behind me.

“My roommate,” I explain, turning to Simon. He doesn’t need to know that my aunt is my roommate. “She’s not home, so—”

Simon closes the door behind us and pushes me flush against it, his mouth hot.

This is ridiculously stupid. I’ve just met him, and we barely know each other. There’s that, but there’s also _this:_ his curls, the mole on his cheek that I treat like a target, his hands. It sounds so stupid, but I feel this connection to him, like I’ve known him my whole life.

He’s pushing me harder into the door, so I push back and start leading him toward my room. The couch is closer, but I’d never hear the end of it from Fiona. We stumble through the kitchen, and as we cross the threshold into my room, Simon trips and nearly falls. I reach out for him at the last second.

“I’m okay!” he laughs. “At least there aren’t stairs here. Some bloke named Basilton pushed me down a flight of stairs once.”

My jaw goes slack.

“I was fine! It just _hurt_ ,” he clarifies.

All the air leaves my lungs.

 _“Snow.”_ I drop his hands.

Simon juts out his chin. “How did you know that?”

I raise an eyebrow. “I’m _Baz_.”

“I know.”

“Do you have any clue what Baz is short for?” I spit.

Simon just looks bewildered.

“It’s short for _Basilton_ , you absolute numpty!” I shout without meaning to.

He looks wounded. _“Fuck.”_

“Indeed,” I say.

Simon pushes past me, closing the door behind him without so much as a second look.

I don’t suppose I blame him. If I'd just made out with someone who pushed me down the stairs once, I don't think I'd have stuck around either. I may have been an arse back at Watford, but I was in love with him the whole time. I still am, I realize.

It felt like we were running from something this whole time. I just didn’t expect we were running from _this_.

I get in bed before the tears start clouding my vision.

***

“Baz! Whose disgusting sneakers are under the couch?”

I groan as the sound of Fiona’s voice wakes me up.

“Maybe Dev’s?” I shout back, even though I know exactly whose shoes they are.

For a moment I had forgotten about last night, but now the full weight of what happened pins me down. We're both so different than we were back at Watford. My hair is longer, and I like to think my cheekbones are more defined. I only ever saw Simon in passing, but he was less bulky back then, like he didn't quite fit into his body yet. The uniform always suited him, but it made him look younger than he was. I remember thinking I wouldn't have recognized him in anything else, and I suppose I was right. On top of all that, his hair was always buzzed. If I had known he was hiding a mop of beautiful curls, I think I would have been even farther gone than I was.

It's stupid, but every day I passed him in the halls and fell more in love with him. I never really talked to him, save for that one time I (accidentally!) pushed him down the stairs. When we graduated and I was sure I'd never see him again, all I could think was that I would never love again, not in the way I loved him.

Sure, the way I loved him was by spreading rumors about him and pushing him down a flight of stairs, but still.

I was sure I’d been right—that there wouldn’t be anyone else—until last night. Finally, there was someone else for me. Except there really, really wasn’t.

Even though my throat burns and my stomach is churning, I’m still thankful for the dream that was last night. It may have been a con, but it was so sweet.

I hear a knock at the front door, and somehow I just _know_.

“I’ll get it!” I shout, rushing out of bed and pushing past Fiona.

Just as I suspected, Simon Snow stands on our doorstep.

“Nice pyjamas,” he smirks.

And _of course_ I picked today to wear my monogrammed silk pyjamas.

“Why are you here?” I grumble, trying to keep my voice level.

“I forgot my shoes,” he says, pointing at the couch sheepishly.

I grab the shoes and shoot a glare in Fiona’s direction, then step outside and close the door behind me.

“You walked home barefoot?” I ask.

“I didn’t want to open the door again!”

I feel the corners of my lips morph into a smile.

“I was thinking,” I say, allowing the smile to grow, “could we just start again? Ignore what happened before?”

“You didn’t seem to want to push me down any stairs yesterday,” he acknowledges.

“I didn’t.”

Simon sticks out his hand, and I shake it. “I liked it better when you call me Simon anyway.”

I keep his hand after we shake, running my thumb over his knuckles. “In that case, _Simon,_ do you want a do-over?”

He breaks into that grin I got to know so well last night. “I’d like that.”

He pulls me in close, and I’m reminded of how we danced last night.

“I’ve gotta warn you, though, I’ve got some tricks up my sleeve,” Simon says, smirking.

“Yeah, all right,” I say, pressing a soft kiss to his lips before he can say anything else.

I just might love again after all.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really sorry for sneaking _another_ song reference in here, but it is what it is. The song Simon and Baz dance to is "Punisher" by Phoebe Bridgers, purely for self-indulgent reasons.
> 
> Find me on [tumblr.](https://effing-numpties.tumblr.com/)


End file.
